A startrescue.co.uk story...

Did you fail to get your driving mitts on a limited-edition £900k McLaren P1? If so, then the 675LT might offer a heart-stopping, 666bhp alternative. Oh but wait – the 500 675LTs ear-marked for production have also sold out.

Oh dear. But let's talk about what you’re going to miss out on.

First of all, you could have got a car that's only a little bit less special than the P1 for only £259,000. We say 'only', because the P1 comes in closer to a million.

No wonder the 675LT sold out so quickly.

But what else makes it special?

Some of the biggest names in the UK automotive press recently had the luck to test drive the new McLaren around one of Britain's most famous circuits – Silverstone.

If you’ve seen the video of Chris Harris screeching around the home of the British GP in a 675LT, then you couldn't fail to feel a big grin spread across your face – or indeed wish you’d sold your house in order to get one of these beasts.

The first thing you notice is how beautiful this machine is. And then you see how much fun Harris is having – in fact he's having so much fun and going so fast, he can hardly manage to tell you about it.

So what makes the 675LT a step up from the 650S – and what separates it from the flagship P1 supercar?

The 675LT (the LT stands for 'long tail') is £64,000 more costly than the £195,000 650S, yet as we've said, delivers performance that is closer to that of the P1. It offers 25 more bhp than the 650S and boasts triple the aerodynamic downforce. It also has lower suspension and most impressive of all, is 100kg lighter than its predecessor. That's about the same as a man who needs to get out of his McLaren a little more often and walk.

The boffins from Woking have managed this weight reduction by lightening, altering or getting rid of no less than 110 components. From a lighter engine to thinner glass – this is the kind of an efficiency drive that would make George Osborne break out in delirious sweats of envy. It's the kind of corner-cutting (yet performance-boosting) project for which the Japanese are rightly famous.

So will P1 owners be kicking themselves because they didn't hold out and buy a 675LT – thereby saving themselves £650,000?

Possibly. The P1 remains a truly revolutionary car with brutal race-car downforce in excess of the 675LT; what's more, it's rarer than the new model – since only 350 examples were built.

But going by some of the excited journalists who test-drove the 675LT recently, it delivers 90 per cent of the P1's performance – and for a third of the price.

And you can drive this one on the Queen's highway without risk of being detained by the local constabulary.

Those who didn't put their name down in time (or sell their family home quickly enough), might be rather upset by how wonderful the 675LT actually is.